The bombing has resumed. Two days into a fresh campaign, the US military reported striking 170 Iranian targets as the conflict entered a new phase following a brief lull. President Trump announced the strikes on Truth Social, framing them as retaliation for Iranian attacks on commercial shipping and warning that further escalation would provoke an even stronger response.
The collapse of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding, which Trump declared finished at this week's NATO summit in Ankara, was not sudden. The agreement began unraveling almost immediately after it was signed, undermined by a problem that has plagued US-Iran diplomacy for decades: neither side could trust the other to honor commitments.
The memorandum had promised a logical sequence. If Iran allowed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the US would lift its blockade, provide sanctions relief, and release frozen Iranian assets. The war in Lebanon would end. These steps were designed to build enough confidence for negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. But the plan depended on an assumption that neither Washington nor Tehran ultimately accepted: that partial implementation would serve as a stepping stone toward a larger deal rather than an opportunity to pocket gains while testing the other side's resolve.
From Tehran's perspective, Washington started breaking key provisions immediately. Israel continued military operations in Lebanon, contradicting the memorandum's first clause. The US reportedly resisted releasing frozen assets at the scale Iran expected. Trump continued issuing public military threats, even during negotiations in Switzerland. Then in July, the US revoked Iran's oil export waiver just as Tehran was consolidating control over Hormuz shipping, forcing vessels into a northern corridor rather than the southern route Washington preferred.
This pattern of mutual recrimination runs deeper than recent disputes. Iranian leaders have watched sanctions imposed, partially lifted, and then reimposed across successive administrations. They understand that much of the US sanctions architecture rests in congressional legislation, meaning any president can revoke waivers with a single decision. Even after the 2015 nuclear deal, sanctions relief failed to produce the investment and economic stability Iran expected. The lesson Tehran drew: promises of future sanctions relief are too fragile to build national security upon.
What has shifted is Iran's strategic calculation about which forms of leverage matter most. Tehran possesses three principal sources of power against the US and Israel. First, its military capabilities and regional networks: missile and drone forces, asymmetric naval assets, and allied groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi armed groups. These can inflict significant military costs but are unlikely to alter the fundamental balance against combined American and Israeli firepower. Second, its nuclear program, long the principal bargaining chip with Washington, which despite damage to declared facilities still offers options if Iran decides to pursue weaponization.
But increasingly, the third form of leverage has become dominant: control over the Strait of Hormuz and global energy flows. That shift changes everything about what a durable agreement would require. US strategic petroleum reserves remain depleted while global oil inventories stay tight because Hormuz shipping has remained far below prewar levels. A prolonged disruption would carry enormous global economic consequences, making the cost of coercion itself economically prohibitive for future administrations.
Unlike surrendering its nuclear program or other traditional leverage in exchange for sanctions relief that could prove temporary, control of Hormuz offers Iran something fundamentally different: a guarantee that rests entirely in its own hands. By managing commercial corridors and potentially establishing joint administration with Oman to collect transit fees, Iran would tie its prosperity and the costs of any American coercion directly to the functioning of the global economy. Future presidents could still abandon diplomacy or Congress could tighten sanctions, but the price of doing so would no longer be cost-free.
This reveals the central problem with the current approach. The question is not whether Iran is willing to negotiate. It is whether Washington can offer an arrangement Tehran believes will endure after Iran has given up its leverage. The memorandum never answered that. It asked Iranian leaders to dilute one of their few durable sources of power in exchange for assurances they regarded as reversible. That does not make diplomacy impossible, but it means agreements built mainly on promises of future sanctions relief are unlikely to survive contact with reality.
If Trump and his team fail to recognize how fundamentally the war has reshaped Tehran's strategic thinking, they will keep negotiating based on assumptions that no longer exist, producing agreements neither side actually believes the other will honor.
Author James Rodriguez: "Trump keeps bombing without understanding that Iran has moved past the old leverage game entirely, and that's a recipe for endless conflict without resolution."
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